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For decades now, the 33 or so miles of Interstate 70 between New Stanton and Washington, Pennsylvania has been miles of narrow highway with nothing but a concrete (prior to that a steel guard rail) median separating high speed Interstate traffic. The ramps at nearly all the interchanges have no acceleration or deceleration ability - in fact nearly all on-ramps to I-70 have a stop sign with them. Narrow lanes and shoulders and low speed limits.

Well the good news - PennDot short of building a new Interstate 70 (I will get to that history some other time) is doing some much needed improvements throughout this stretch of highway. As of this blog entry in November, 2015, the Smithton (Exit 49) and PA 519 (Exit 25) interchanges have been redone and the PA 917, PA 481 and New Stanton interchange rebuilds are underway. Further plans are to improve the interchanges with PA 51, PA 31 and Yukon/Wyano within the next five years.

People have a love hate relationship with Breezewood, Pennsylvania. It's either loved as a unique piece of America and road travel. (Editor's note: In writing this entry, I couldn't find any article, blog post or webpage that says how wonderful Breezewood is.) Or it is hated, despised, or even boycotted.

This post isn't about my personal opinion of it. In the past five or six years, our family typically goes through Breezewood between 9pm and midnight on our way from Eastern North Carolina to Pittsburgh - and I have never experienced the notorious backups that people dislike so much. But I digress.

Earlier this week, I came across an amazing website that features aerial photos of Pennsylvania from the late 1930s to the early 1970s. It is called Penn Pilot - and is hosted by Penn State University. Trust me, you can waste a whole day looking at this site. It's a wonderful resource. So one of my first looks was Breezewood to see if they have pictures of the evo…

Got a chance this past Saturday to drive along Connecticut's I-395 from where the route joins the original Connecticut Turnpike, that is secretly designated (not signed) as CT 695 to where CT 2A leaves the interstate south of Norwich. I-395 is the first freeway to be given milepost-based exit numbers by the State of Connecticut (along with CT 2A and CT 695). The original numbers run from 77 to 100 and are those of the Connecticut Turnpike (up to 90) which start at the New York border The new numbers will run from 2 to 53. The state's plan is to convert the rest of its freeways over the next 10-20 years as part of exit sign replacement contracts. The I-395 project was split in two with the first section to be started that between I-95 and old Exit 88. Many photos have already been taken of signs along this section, check out Jay Hogan's I-395 Flickr Page.

Here are some of the photos taken of new exit signs and numbers north of Exit 88.